I must be becoming a serious ‘fan boy’ for Henry Rollins as this is the fourth time that I’ve seen him, the second time at this venue.

The Academy looks like it’s undergoing serious improvements as the entire hall is wrapped in an eight foot high wooden wall. If I didn’t know better I would have thought that it was closed completely. You even have to walk through the rubble to get inside. Luckily we were let inside early as it was damn cold waiting in line. Unfortunately the hall doesn’t seem to be heated at all which just meant an hour or more wait, but at least we were all sat down.

At 8:30pm prompt Henry ran on stage, grabbed the mic, wrapping the cord around his hand and started to talk.

To try and mention all the topics he covered would be futile… but I’ll try: he talked about singing with The Ruts, making a film (which could have been goat porn for all he knew), being in Pakistan when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, seeing The Van Halens and remembering Ted Nugent, meeting David Lee Roth in his art gallery, going to Beirut, searching for stuff on ‘the internets’ and using ‘the googles’, George Bush declaring that Mandela was dead. The list goes on.

One thing that he hasn’t mentioned before is his pet snake. I knew that he kept snakes but, apart from letting it chase Heidi around the office, he hasn’t ever said what type of snake it is, just that it’s female. Possibly he hasn’t even named it, as most of us would.

The other thing to note is his spot on impersonation of Christopher Walken, which I thought was brilliant. He even did a little Jello Biafra for good measure.

Three hours later and the show is over. My arse was completely dead and numb. Next time I’m bringing my own cushion.

Sir Les PattersonThe online archive of Sir Leslie Colin Patterson. Wit, sage, raconteur, late Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James and Chairperson of the Australian Chapter of the International Cheese Board.